Whitestar is the attempt to create and experiment, within the virtual worlds, an ideal society based on understanding, respect, compassion, friendship. Our main objective is to build a space that feel secure, cozy, joyful and warmhearthed.

It's been almost a year now since we resurrected Whitestar. Like most guilds - it all started with a couple of friends who wanted to play together in different games. But we saw potential in what we had and started thinking about what we could have - thus we started to discuss the shape and form of the new Whitestar - Whitestar 2.0.

We wanted to create a tight-knit multi-gaming community; cozy, warmhearted, dynamic. A place for lasting friendships to develop and flourish. A place for everyone to feel relaxed and at home.

We gathered a whole bunch of different kind of people - to compliment each other. (Clumsy, skilled, casual, shy, funny, youtubers/streamers, forumites.)

We wanted to build guilds "that get things done" in a warm and relaxed atmosphere.

After we had created the Whitestar-nook we spread the news and old friends and former guildies joined us. Once actual guilds began to form - we opened our recruitment to the public, but we were very careful in the beginning.

It was very important for us to be sure our guilds would stay united within our community and that all our members would know each other and bond via our forums, no matter the game they did play or didn't play.
After the first month we adopted a more restrictive recruitment that included a mandatory Community Membership.

We hoped that the players coming to us would want to be part of our global project, would believe in it, embrace it and become an active member and dedicated community member in the long run.
For this reason we had a lot of discussions. We tried different approaches, organized community nights, community games and contests.

To make the whole recruitment-discussions and dialogues short:
When it all comes down to nothing we spent a lot of energy for a (as it turned out) sub-optimal model. Starting out we were a really small, tight-knit group where everyone knew everyone. Now we've grown quite large and everyone can't possibly get to know everyone they're not sharing a game with - it's not feasible anymore.

What we will change

First of all: we are going to change our rankings on Anook to reflect the new system.

How to become a Whitestar guild member

Going forwards, guilds will take care of their own recruitment and trial process - only supervised and assisted by the Council. The recruitment will be more targeted towards the needs of the guild itself.

Once recruited and having succeeded the trial a player is promoted to member (of the specific Guild). A member will be expected to be active in his/her game. A member is expected to follow the rules, sign up/decline for events, notify an officer when s/he will go missing, be nice and friendly, etc - pretty much the usual. In other words: a member of a Whitestar-guild is still expected to follow the guidelines set by the Whitestar community.

A big change is that Community Membership will no longer be mandatory. It will no longer be expected nor granted simply because you're in a Whitestar-guild. Some people are not actively looking for a community and may only want to play this one game or are simply not a forum/TS type of person.

Members: A member of one of the Whitestar Guilds are expected to be active in the game and follow the guild rules. Members have no duties nor responsibilities besides what the guild has set.

How to become a Community member of Whitestar

If a guild member of a Whitestar Guild wishes to become part of the community (someone who is active beyond the bounds of the Game/Guild) s/he just announces this to one member of the council.

There is no time limit. It can happen immediately after the trial period or two years later. It only matters that the member feels that s/he belongs to or wants to belong to the community. The Council will evaluate and decide on this, which will essentially be based on activity and friendliness.

We obviously wish that in time, most members will grow from the Guild into the Community.
We also acknowledge that this is not something that can be forced or created artificially. We truly accept that some members will be happy staying in their respective Guild.

But one can also apply to be a community member without applying to one of the guilds. This will however mean that activity on Anook will be vital during the trial process and beyond. The trial process will in this case be supervised by the Council and will be extended to three months instead of one.

So basically: guilds can recruit players when needed with a possible Community membership down the line.

Community Members: Active, loyal and dedicated members of the Community. Can be active or not in any of the Whitestar guilds. Community members are naturally expected to be active on Anook!

GUILD OFFICERS

Each guild will take care of their own recruitment and their own trial members.

In ESO: every member is an officer right now. But this will have to change for technical issue regarding forum permissions. @Elloa would like to be assisted by 2 people that are both active in game and on the forums.

RECRUITMENT CHANGES
Recruitment will be placed in the hands of the guild management and only assisted by the Council if the they require aid.

Guild leaders are welcome to add to the application form to target their recruitment better for the guilds specific needs.

Guilds will recruit members that fit their own project/s. With this change, our guilds may be able to evolve and offer a better environment for its current and future members.

LF 1 COUNCIL MEMBER
As we are giving more independence to our guilds, The Council will work together to create bridges between our different guilds and to encourage our members to bond with each other.

One solution to that is to offer more "common" activities.
Which is why we are looking for someone that would specifically take the task of organizing mini-games, encourage our members to participate on the forums and generally assist in managing the community.
Our community has evolved a lot during the past year, but due to RL issues the number of Council members has decreased.

It will take some times before we settle everything. We have our monthly community meeting soon, and hopefully we will see you all there :)

Do not hesitate to share your feedback or ask any questions you may have. Either here, in the forums or during the community meetings.

It's now five years that Whitestar had been created. Every week (or so), I'll share a Chapter of our Story. I hope our newest members will find amusing and interesting to learn how everything started.In the last blog post, we remembered the first steps of Whitestar as a true raiding guild.

CHAP V: WHITESTAR EVOLVE

While the Whitestar guild in World of Warcraft entered in hibernation, an hibernation that would last several years, I was hunting for the new game to settle in. I had a bite of Rift, but that game didn't managed to get the interest of @Internet more than two weeks, I had to seek somewhere else.
Two games semt promising at that time: Tera and GuildWars2 They still were in devellopement, but I started to follow them closely. As I was watching a video of Tera's amazing combat on gorgeous landscape, my boyfriend told me that it looked interesting. I didn't need more to be sent on a Crusade.

I started by being extremely active on Tera European forum, and seak for informations a bit everywhere. I participated to a contest where we had to create a trailer. That was the first time I used a video editor, and the very beggining of a passion!

...Tera Online Fan trailer by Elloa

I also decided to create a solid project for Whitestar, find members that would be as excitted and passionated by the game than I was myself, and hopefully this would get the attention of my friends. I created a recruitment thread to build up from scratch a whole new project. I explained my ideas and the vision I had for our future guild. Very fast, I got several answers. The first person to apply for Whitestar was @torhagen a person with whom I was arguing constantly on Tera forum. We rarely agreed but we somehow enjoyed to argue together.

Name: AnthonyAge: 34Location: SwissShort presentation : I'm am an Idealist a social and talkative person. I like fantasy and Scifi a lot one of my favourite Movies is V for Vendetta.I'm quite interested in Anime and Mangas Why do you feel Whitestar is the guild for you?
I am looking for a Clan that offers a familiar atmosphere like you wrote in your post on the European Forum.
I too remember the First Year of WoW fondly

Little time after, I received a very friendly message from someone asking me if s/he (?) could join with his boyfriend. I didn't realized immediately than the person writing was a guy and not a girl This is how @Acharial joined Whitestar with all his fabulousness, and his shy boyfriend. While the sexual preference of a person doesn't matter, in the case of @Acharial it was important. You need to imagine @Alakina and her bewjokes replaced by "how-boobs-are-disguting jokes" and pictures of "sexy" guys shared on Skype and you will have an idea of how was Whitestar during this period! Ooh...and "Low Carb High Fat" diet discussions....
Acharial is not part of Whitestar anymore, but for several years he had been one of the key members, shaping Whitestar, and transforming it for ever.

Name: Peter, but people call me Chucky. A nickname from when I was really young.Age: 22Location: SwedenShort presentation : I'm currently studying economics and tourism, this is my last year; thank god! Other than that I'm a very social and talkative person. I like reading fantasy a lot and my favorite book series is "A song of ice and Fire". Anime and Manga is also a huge interests of mine.

While we were waiting for Tera release, we didn't had much to do beside chatting on forums or in our Skype group, following the news, creating our logo, and our forum signatures...and that was about it! We knew that we would have to wait for a long time before to see our game released. So we decided to join the Korean server and to finally play the game! It was really great, as for the very first time, we could play together, and discover this amazing game that we expected to be our new paradise for the years to come!